Jerry Lee Lewis is best remembered as the frenetic rocker who recorded for the Sun label during the latter half of the 1950s. Hits such as \u201cWhole Lotta Shakin\u2019 Going On,\u201d \u201cBreathless,\u201d and \u201cGreat Balls Of Fire\u201d not only climbed to the upper reaches of the American singles charts but helped to provide the foundation for rock \u2018n\u2019 roll itself.<\/p>\n
His career came to a screeching halt in 1958 when he married his thirteen-year-old cousin. He was blacklisted by radio stations acrosst the United States, and his concert opportunities dried up as well. While he continued to record, he practically vanished from the music scene. It was not until he returned as a country artist during 1968 that he made a personal and commercial comeback.<\/p>\n
Killer Country gathers the best of his country material (1968-1977) recorded for the Mercury label and its subsidiary Smash. He issued four number one country hits and five more that reached number two.<\/p>\n
Many of his big country hits are sung with passion and sincerity, and his voice took on a new maturity over the years. Songs such as \u201cAnother Time, Another Place,\u201d \u201cWhat Made Milwaukee Famous,\u201d \u201cShe Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye,\u201d and \u201cWho\u2019s Gonna Play This Old Piano\u201d represent the best of late \u201860s and \u201870s country music.<\/p>\n
His take on the Kris Kristofferson classic \u201cMe And Bobby McGee\u201d was brilliant. In a sense, he deconstructs the song and reinvents it with a honky tonk interpretation.<\/p>\n
His early material was stark and basic country with the emphasis upon storytelling ballads. During the early \u201870s, he began to fill out the sound with strings and backing choruses. \u201cHe Can\u2019t Fill My Shoes\u201d and \u201cMiddle Age Crazy\u201d are representative of this change, which also reflected the evolution of American country music at the time.<\/p>\n
He last track for the Mercury label was \u201cPee Wee\u2019s Place,\u201d which brought to mind the smoky juke joints he had been performing in for the past fifteen years. The line \u201cIf the barbecue don\u2019t get you, the music will\u201d was a fitting conclusion to the most prolific period of his country career.<\/p>\n
Killer Country<\/i> finds a far different Jerry Lee Lewis from his rock \u2018n\u2019 roll days. Not many artists would have had the talent or resolve to reinvent themselves as he did.<\/p>\n
Today, Jerry Lee Lewis is the last man standing of the major artists who recorded for The Sun label during the \u201850s. Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash are all gone, but Jerry Lee plays on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":33309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7823],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45120","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jerry-lee-lewis","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45120"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}